Ads

Monday, April 27, 2015
ESHAWAR (BNA) At least 44 people were killed and more than 200 wounded when a mini-cyclone, described by Met Office as the third worst in the country's history, struck Peshawar and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday.
Most of the victims were women and children as torrential rains lashed Peshawar, Mardan, Nowshera and other areas of the province causing roofs to cave in and walls to collapse.
Rescuers rushed victims to hospitals as roads submerged in water hindered their operations. Ambulances and rescue vehicles found difficult to enter into some areas due to fallen trees and electric poles. Residents carried some of the injured on their backs to cars heading to hospitals.
An emergency has been declared at all local hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Most of the victims were shifted to Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital. As the number of casualties kept increasing LRH could not cope with the influx of injured and, therefore, fresh arrivals were taken to the Khyber Teaching Hospital.
While extending his condolences on the loss of life and property due to the torrential rains, Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif approved a package of Rs500,000 for the family of each deceased person and Rs50,000 for each person injured.

Sunday, April 26, 2015
LANDI KOTAL (BNA) Nine suspected militants were killed in fresh air strikes in Tirah valley of Khyber tribal region on Saturday.
An Inter-Services Public Relations statement said jets bombed hideouts of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and Lashkar-i-Islam in Kanu Gharaibi, Pathai, Baagh, Rajgal, Jhrandy and Nakai areas of Kukikhel and Malakdin Khel.
The ISPR claimed that nine militants affiliated with the TTP and LI were killed in the air strikes and five of their hideouts destroyed.
LI spokesman Salahuddin Ayubi in a telephonic conversation with journalists rejected the ISPR’s claim.
Meanwhile, security forces arrested 12 suspects during a house-to-house search in Ghundi area of Jamrud tehsil. Officials said the detainees were suspected of having links with some banned organizations.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015
QUETTA (BNA) 17 condemned prisoners were sent to the gallows in various jails on Tuesday morning, a day which marks the highest number of executions in the country since the moratorium on death penalties was lifted.
In Central Jail in Gujranwala, convicts Inayatullah, Zafar Iqbal and Muhammad Latif were hanged. Inayatullah was convicted for the murder of seven people from the same family in Wazirabad, whereas Iqbal and Latif were hanged for shooting four people including one woman over a petty issue.
In Faisalabad, two convicts Muhammad Hussain and Nizamuddin were hanged in Central Jail whereas Muhammad Azam was hanged in District Jail. Hussain and Nizamuddin were convicted for the murder of three people in 1998 while Azam was convicted for murdering seven people from one family in 2004.
Read: Twelve convicts executed in various jails across Pakistan
In Sialkot Jail, convicts Luqman and Saleem were sent to the gallows for the gang-rape of a minor in Qila Kalarwala in 1999. Their death warrants were issued last week by a special Anti-Terrorism Court in Gujranwala.
Sultan Alias Raja was hanged in Multan's Central jail committing murder in 2000 whereas, in Sahiwal's Central Jail a convict named Liaqat was hanged for murdering a man named Bilal in 1998.
Meanwhile, Convict Azhar Mehmood was hanged in Gujrat District Jail for the murder of a man named Shan Ali Tarrar in 1995 over minor arguments.
Also read: Five prisoners hanged in Punjab jails
In Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Jail, two convicts were hanged for murder whereas in Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail, three were sent to the gallows also for murder. A convict named Riaz Ahmed was also hanged for murder in Quetta's Mach jail.
Pakistan lifted its moratorium on the death penalty in all capital cases on March 10.
Initially executions were resumed for terrorism offences only in the wake of a Taliban massacre at an army-run school in Peshawar which had claimed the lives of more than 150 persons, mostly schoolchildren, on December 16, 2014.
The United Nations, the European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on Pakistan to re-impose its moratorium on the death penalty.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Yemen (BNA) The Al-Qaeda group in Yemen has announced that a top Saudi leader in the organization has been killed by a US air strike, according to a statement distributed by the group online.
The group said in a statement on Tuesday that Ibrahim al Rubaish was killed in a drone attack two days earlier.The group did not specify where the purported strike took place.
Al-Rubaish had a $5m bounty on his head.
The death of al-Rubaish may be a sign that a covert US drone programme against Yemen's branch of the armed group continues despite the evacuation of American military advisers from the country amid a worsening civil war.
Yemeni and US officials had no immediate comment on the claim.
The group said al-Rubaish, who is from Saudi's ultra-conservative Qassim region, "has spent two decades of his life in jihad, fighting America and its agents".
He first fought in Afghanistan before he was arrested and held in the US military prison of Guantanamo for "a few years" before he joined al-Qaeda.
Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, who has reported extensively on Yemen, said al-Rubaish was "someone who has huge influence" among Yemen's al-Qaeda fighters.